ABC News Anchor Gets Caught Giving Secret Clinton Donation

George Stephanopoulos, the chief anchor of ABC News, was forced to apologize for not telling his viewers (or his bosses) that he gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation recently: $25,000 a year for the past three years.

Stephanopoulos formerly served a chief campaign advisor to Bill Clinton back in 1992, and worked in the White House during Clinton’s first term. But since then, he’s reinvented himself as a seemingly objective journalist. He’s been with ABC since 1997, and currently hosts “Good Morning America.”

Aside from the embarrassment at getting caught giving a small fortune to the Clinton Foundation, this has bigger repercussions for Stephanopoulos’s role in 2016, due to perceived bias.

In 2012, Stephanopoulos came under criticism when he hosted a 2012 Republican primary debate for ABC. He infamously asked Mitt Romney, the Republican front runner, if he believed the Supreme Court should ban contraception–something no candidate, on either side of the aisle, advocated. Romney took umbrage at the question–but nevertheless, it became a key part of Obama’s “War on Women” attacks.

Such bias would seem even more unseemly given his ties to the Clintons not just in the early 1990s but even today, with his big payout to the Clinton Foundation.

For his part, Stephanopoulos sees nothing wrong with what he did: “I think I’ve shown that I can moderate debates fairly. That said, I know there have been questions made about moderating debates this year. I want to be sure I don’t deprive moderators or viewers of a good debate.”

ABC is sticking by Stephanopoulos for now–ludicrously calling an annual gift of $25,000 for three years in a row an “honest mistake”–but also announced he would not be moderating ABC’s upcoming New Hampshire Republican debate.

Adam Campbell is a former military brat, who grew up all over the world--but considers Milwaukee, WI, where he and his wife currently live, to be his home. He enjoys reporting the real news, without bias.